She expertly played the role of temptress, crawling across the bedspread on all fours like a predator stalking her prey. Which, of course, she was: her fangs were extended, jaw agape to show off their considerable length. Her movements were fluid, catlike, and her target—a lean, muscular man whose dark hair shone in the candlelight—was huddled theatrically against the headboard, a wooden stake in his hand.

“Stay back!” he said, in a tone that beckoned her to come closer. His hooded eyes flickered momentarily as he sighed. She advanced, whisper quiet across the linens.

“I will taste you,” she said, her voice as silky smooth as the bedsheets. She bent over him, her lips just barely brushing the pulsing skin that covered his jugular, when suddenly she felt the stake plunge into the spot where her shoulder met her chest. She reared back, hiding her expression from his view as she put on a show of being wounded. She clambered off the bed and drew the stake out, pretending to pant and catch her breath. But as she tossed the toy to the floor, she grinned in anticipation. Not a bad way to make a quick $100,000, she thought, appreciating the money people were willing to pay for the bite of a vampire , as she reached for him.

***

Denver’s Central Bank boasted an on-site vault, with hundreds of safety deposit boxes deep below the bowels of the city, and Maria couldn’t get down there fast enough. Escorted by one of the bank managers, she tapped her foot all the way down in the elevator, until a stern, sidelong glance from the mustachioed manager inspired her to be still. When the doors opened, the little man paused, peering up at her.

“This is highly unusual,” he asserted, holding the door open for her as she stepped off in front of him, “bringing a notarized letter in order to gain access—”

“I know,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her and peering impatiently down at him. “If I’d been given any more details, I would relay them to you. But all I know is that time is of the essence, so if you wouldn’t mind…?” Maria gestured down the dark hall and, with a begrudging nod, the bank manager led the way.

Maria’s heels clicked down the tiled hall before they slipped into one of the viewing rooms. She took a seat at a small, wooden table and slid a slip of paper across it to the bank manager. He cast it a furtive glance. “I know which box belongs to the Barlow family,” he said, turning on his heel to fetch it.

Sighing, she relaxed a little, lifting a hand to tuck an errant ink-black curl behind her ear. It was unusual, she mused to herself, that she should be sent with such haste to pick up… well, whatever was in this box. It was stranger still that she had no idea what was even in the box, despite having been all but adopted into the Barlow family. Having bounced around foster homes for her entire childhood, Maria had always dreamed of a finding a place with people who loved her. But when she was 18, the best she could hope for was a job. Fortunately, the Barlow family had been in dire need of a personal secretary, and with them she gained employment, a beautiful place to live, and the family she’d all but stopped praying for. The Barlows had taken her into their home, under their wing, and into their hearts, and inspired in her a love and loyalty that she had never thought possible. So when they sent her out minutes before the bank was set to close to pick up a mysterious artifact from a safe deposit box she didn’t know existed, she set off without asking any questions.

The bank manager returned with the box and placed it on the table in front of her. “I’ll give you some privacy,” he said. “And when you’re finished, please feel free to leave the box here and head back upstairs. The bank is already closed, so—”

“I won’t be long,” she said, and he gave a curt nod before leaving her alone in the viewing room.

She opened the metal safety deposit box and found that there was only one item inside: another box, wood, which she pulled out. She opened the second box and found that it was lined with blue velvet, and when she pulled the velvet aside, she found a small chest. Intricately jeweled, and tightly locked. She furrowed her brow and fished out the chest, grasping it with both hands, as it was dense and heavy. Some sort of decorative item, perhaps from the Barlow family’s many trips abroad?

It didn’t matter what it was—she’d been sent to fetch it, and fetch it she would. She placed the chest back in its box and tucked the box into her messenger bag. Hoisting the bag up onto her shoulder, she made as speedy an exit as she could—for whatever reason, the Barlows had stressed that the task was urgent.

***

The errand had taken Maria much longer than she had initially anticipated, and it was fully dark by the time she returned to the Barlows’ palatial estate on the outskirts of the suburbs. As she pulled her car up the drive, she thought it was strange how dark the house was—how dark and how quiet. It was usually bursting with activity: servants scurrying about preparing meals or cleaning rooms, or, with the day’s work done, lounging on the porch drinking Arnold Palmers and chatting about the trials of the day. But on her approach, the windows were dark and empty, and a shiver of foreboding ran down her spine.

She pushed through the back door of the house that led into the kitchen, where a gazpacho had been left to languish, unfinished, in a blender. That was odd, she thought, her sense of unease growing. She made her way through the lower corridors and up the stairs, until she found herself in the main foyer, which was where she saw the first body.

She gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth to keep herself quiet, as she bent down to examine the prostrate body, so bloody as to be almost unrecognizable. It was Mildred, the cook, who looked like she’d been cut down as she fled from the basement. Maria scrambled over to her, trying to calm her own ragged breathing, and pressed two fingers against Mildred’s neck, looking desperately for a pulse, and finding nothing. Hot tears began to sting the corners of her eyes, and through her panic it dawned on her that if there had been one violent death, the rest of the household was also in danger. She stood up and began to run from room to room.

In the library, the butler had been killed, his blood a thick pool in front of the fireplace. This was a man who had, only last year, taught her to ride a bicycle. A man who called her Tulip because he knew she loved them so.

Two maids in the parlor, Jackie and Phoebe, piled together haphazardly, blood spattering high up the walls. On and on, her friends and chosen family, the other workers of the Barlow estate, strewn in various rooms, lifeless. But where were the Barlows themselves? She began to scale the staircase in search of them when she heard unfamiliar voices echoing off the stone walls. She ducked into a shadowy corner, trembling with fear and shock, straining to listen.

“It isn’t here,” one voice asserted, impatient. “We’ve turned the entire place upside down—it isn’t bloody well here. It’s covered in jewels, not easy to miss.”

“It’s got to be here somewhere,” a second voice countered. “We know they have it. The box is small; they’ve gotta be hiding it somewhere.”

A jeweled box. Maria’s hands grasped her messenger bag as she realized that the strange artifact that she’d been sent to retrieve was precisely what these men were after.

A third voice spoke slowly. “Nine, right? We only got nine. There’s one more here somewhere, maybe they have it.”

Nine, Maria thought frantically. Nine what? And it dawned on her: there were nine other members of the household. She was the tenth.